If you have not seen Thor2, avoid reading as there is small spoilers in this post….
I don’t know if its by pure chance or the Animatrix’s Beyond was inspiration for a section of Thor2 the dark world? When I watched it at the cinema, I couldn’t help but feel something was very familiar about the first section.
From Wikipedia, Thor 2
In London, astrophysicist Dr. Jane Foster and her intern Darcy Lewis travel to an abandoned factory where such portals have appeared, disrupting the laws of physics around them. Separating from the group, Jane is teleported to another world, where she is infected by the Aether. Heimdallalerts Thor that Jane has moved beyond his near omnipotent sight, leading Thor to Earth. When Thor finds Jane, she inadvertently releases an unearthly force, and Thor returns with her to Asgard. Odin, recognizing the Aether, warns that the Aether will not only kill Jane, but that its return heralds a catastrophic prophecy.
And from Wikipedia Animatrix’s Beyond
The children have stumbled across an amalgamation of anomalies within an old, dilapidated building. They have learned to exploit this glitch in the Matrix for their own enjoyment, through several areas which seem to defy real-world physics: glass bottles reassemble after being shattered, rain falls from a sunny sky, broken lightbulbs flicker briefly (during which they seem intact), a door which opens into an endless dark void, shadows which do not align with their physical origins, and a dove’s feather that rotates rapidly in place in mid-air. There is a large open space in the middle of the run-down building where they take turns jumping off a high point and falling towards the ground, yet somehow stopping inches before impact. This proves amusing and they do not seem to be bothered by the inherent strangeness of the place.
If you seen both parts you will know what bits I’m talking about.
The kids playing in a dilapidated building, messing with what they think is anti-gravity but its actually parallel universes and time. Some objects disappear, most end up disappearing and then appearing again. I believe even the make up of the kids playing is similar (2 boys and one girl?) and hovering truck anyone?
My guess would be they bought the rights to this content for use in Thor2. As an Animatrix fan, even as early as going to the strange warehouse where kids were playing in it made me start thinking of the episode. Once they continued with the kids throwing the bottle around and interacting with the physics it was all I could think about. Then they also reused the hallway she walks into alone with all of the papers flying around her. Give Natalie Portman a cat to look for and this is the same scene applied to a movie.
Glad I’m not the only one who noticed this… Yes I was actually planning to make a side by side video, showing the similarities but I know it will get wiped off youtube as soon as I upload it 🙁